Sam Elliott

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Bodi is a Tibetan Mastiff who's tired of his life on Snow Mountain where his job is to guard sheep from a prowling wolf named Linnux and his friends. It may sound scary work, but little is more scary than Bodi's authoritarian father Khampa who is literally top dog and has a strict rule against anything that may be distracting to the work - including music. However, one day while Bodi is out manning the fort, he discovers a radio that has fallen from a aircraft. Curiosity gets the better of him and he checks it out, and it only takes a few seconds of rock music for him to realise that it's his dream to become a rock 'n' roll star. He decides to leave his home and venture to the city where he teams up with a legendary musician named Angus Scattergood who wants him to help him write a new song. Unfortunately, Linnux is still on the prowl and Bodi finds himself having to choose between his family and his passion.

Elle Reid may be tough, but she's struggling coping with a recent break-up with her girlfriend. If that wasn't enough to contend with, her 18-year-old granddaughter Sage has just shown up at her house, and she needs over $600 immediately. She's pregnant and Elle's financial situation isn't at its best, but she's determined to do everything she can to help her granddaughter. She takes her on a roadtrip to recover cash from Sage's ex-boyfriend - and while her method of extracting money could be more polite, Sage is glad of her company when she manages to obtain it. Elle gives Sage a lesson in tough-talking as she continues to tour the country selling her possessions and begging cash of some old friends. When the pair arrive to see Sage's mom, it's another story; she's a high-flying business woman and the complete opposite of her mother and daughter - and it's clear to see why Sage chose Elle to help her out.

Old age is usually seen as a sad time to reflect on your life's work and morn you past friends. For Carol (Blythe Danner), an elderly widow, this is the case. That is, until her friends force her back into the dating game. She is beginning to realise that her day to day life is becoming monotonous, yet she soon enough meets Bill (Sam Elliot). A retiree himself, Bill reminds her that even at the supposed twilight years of your life, there is still a chance to begin all over again.

Elle Reid is an ageing poet recovering from a broken heart following her break-up with her long term girlfriend. When her troubled 18-year-old granddaughter Sage turns up on her doorstep one day, she thinks she finally has the distraction she needs. However, Sage needs $600 and Elle, now being pretty much broke, can't give it to her. Instead, she offers to drive her around on a long road trip to recover cash from various friends and ex-boyfriends; though it's not only cash they find on the way. Numerous secrets are uncovered and old conflict is resurfaced, and Sage is forced to face responsibility and start becoming an adult. At the same time, Elle knows it's time for her to start thinking about the most important things in life, accept the troubles of her past and stop living under the 'tough woman' guise.

Sonny Weaver, Jr. is the general manager of National Football League team the Cleveland Browns who is faced with immediate dismissal if he does not put together an unbeatable draft pick for his team. With pressure from his associates and from Browns fans, he wants to make a spectacular impact on the football world on draft day but, with his ideas being very different from everyone else's, he's in for a big struggle to bring everyone round to his way of thinking and after making what seems like a professionally suicidal trade, even his mother starts to lose faith in him. Excitement builds as draft day nears, with everyone baffled by what could possibly be in store for the Cleveland Browns; but will Sonny pull through with the number one pick of the year?

Ben Shepard is a young and ambitious reporter determined to make a name for himself in the media world. When Sharon Solarz, a member of the radical left organisation Weather Underground, is arrested for her involvement in a bank robbery and subsequent murder 30 years ago, Ben smells an important story that could be his big break. Meanwhile, attorney Jim Grant, a single father of an 11-year-old daughter named Isabel who was also involved in the crime, is forced on the run from the FBI as Ben sparks a new manhunt, but on the way he changes course in an effort to expose the truth and prove his innocence. Ben discovers that the whole story is more complicated than he initially thought, particularly as not everyone appears to be who they say they are.

That New Line Cinema did so well with the Lord of the Rings trilogy is both a blessing and a curse. After supporting Peter Jackson's fine work, it's a natural assumption that the company has the means and access to the appropriate talent to develop strong adaptations of youthful fantasy materials (ignoring Dungeons & Dragons, of course). It is, in fact, quite difficult to discuss another such type of film without comparing, but doing so threatens to tarnish some of the shine that The Golden Compass deserves.

I should note that I have read the original Philip Pullman books that this trilogy will be based on. Like Tolkien, Pullman creates a multi-layered world to journey through, but he tends to be tighter with narrative style than Tolkien. What he lacks in verbosity he makes up for in texture, and this may be where some problems will lie for an audience, as he is comfortable not sharing useful character and cultural details immediately. Over the course of this film, some information does get left out to respect the audience's time in a theater, but it in no way affects the enjoyment of watching Lyra's (Dakota Blue Richards) story unfold.

It's gotten to the point where almost any movie with a narrated prologue is suspect. But the opening section of the comic-book adaptation Ghost Rider starts with a particularly troubling apocalyptic rumble of exposition. See, there was this guy a bunch of years ago who made a deal with the devil, to act as a bounty hunter for wayward souls. But in collecting souls from one dusty town, he saw things so horrifying that he defied the devil and absconded with the contract (I'm not being careful about spoilers; the movie really is that vague). The narration, which you may recognize in vocal tone if not wittiness from The Big Lebowski's Sam Elliott, says that this figure -- this first Ghost Rider -- "outran" the devil (Peter Fonda, by the way), but it looks more like Ghost Rider rode a horse into the sunset while the devil watched, perhaps as confused as those in the audience.

Now then: What does this have to do with Johnny Blaze, superstar motorcycle daredevil? Well, writer-director Mark Steven Johnson will tell you, in a second prologue, after the opening credits, showing Blaze, as a teenager, making one of those unfortunate and confusing satanic contracts in an attempt to save his father's life. Johnson is apparently under the impression that this 20-minute backstory technique worked so well in his Daredevil that he can't afford to, say, skip it and get right to Nicolas Cage, who eventually shows up as the adult Johnny, about to be confronted by the consequences of said contract. Young Johnny's deal is so inadvertent and, again, vague, that the situation lacks considerable drama, but the show must go on.

From Marvel Comics, creators of Spider-Man, Blade and X-Men, comes a new hero....Ghost Rider. Long ago, superstar motorcycle stunt rider Johnny Blaze made a deal with the devil to protect the ones he loved most: his father and his childhood sweetheart, Roxanne (Eva Mendes). Now, the devil has come for his due. By day, Johnny is a die-hard stunt rider... but at night, in the presence of evil, he becomes the Ghost Rider, a bounty hunter of rogue demons. Forced to do the devil's bidding, Johnny is determined to confront his fate and use his curse and powers to defend the innocent.

Striding up alongside such great anti-heroes as Tony Soprano and Scarface comes Nick Naylor, a silver-tongued lobbyist with such a tremendous gift for gab that he actually successfully defends the tobacco industry. And as much as you probably think cigarette makers are evil, you'll find yourself - as with all anti-heroes - actually rooting for this scumbag.

Why? Well, besides star Aaron Eckhart's flawlessly sumptuous performance as Naylor, I'll just quote a line from Naylor himself: "The beauty of argument is that if you argue correctly, you're never wrong." In the end, Nick Naylor is not just right; he's unquestionably the most passionate, most seductive man on the screen, and everyone else just looks limp and dull beside him.